Showbiz Gossip

Barbra Streisand has filed a lawsuit against an amateur photographer, claiming he is violating her privacy by displaying a picture of her clifftop Malibu estate on a website designed to document erosion along California's coastline.

Barbra Streisand has filed a lawsuit against an amateur photographer, claiming he is violating her privacy by displaying a picture of her clifftop Malibu estate on a website designed to document erosion along California's coastline.

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, seeks millions of dollars in damages and asks retired software engineer Kenneth Adelman to remove the image of Streisand's mansion from the 12,000 photos he has posted on his website.

The lawsuit states the quality of the photograph is so good that anyone with an internet connection can view the layout of Streisand's pool, the positioning of her umbrellas and deck chairs as well as the location of the windows, French doors and balconies of her home and guest houses.

Adelman's lawyer, Richard Kendall, claims the lawsuit has no merit and is simply an attempt to intimidate Adelman.

"Mr Adelman is not a paparazzo. He's not doing this for profit or stalking anyone," Kendall told the Los Angeles Times.

"He is engaged in a public-interest effort to document the entire coast to preserve it from degradation. He's not about to carve out exceptions for celebrities who don't want to be identified as owning coastal land."

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Richard Chamberlain, who starred in the 1960s television series Dr Kildare, has come out of the closet at the age of 69.

"I'm not a romantic leading man any more so I don't need to nurture that public image," he said on the US TV programme Dateline at the weekend.

"When I grew up, being gay, being a sissy or anything like that was verboten. I disliked myself intensely and feared this part of myself intensely and had to hide it and become 'Perfect Richard, All-American Boy'."

Although he shot to fame on Dr Kildare, which ran from 1961 to 1966, Chamberlain found a new legion of fans by playing Father Ralph de Bricassart in the 1983 mini-series The Thorn Birds.

His interview coincides with the release of his autobiography Shattered Love.